“No,” I admitted.
“Precisely,” Major Wilson replied, with a satisfied snap of his teeth.
The soldier returned with two sandwich slices wrapped in a plastic carton. Egg and cheese. Not what I’d have ordered for my last meal, but I was famished and munched my way through the two brown bread triangles in a minute.
“Come on,” Major Wilson said once I’d finished, “Might as well give you the guided tour now you’re here.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. I wasn’t falling for his deadpan sarcasm twice.
The Major walked to the door and indicated I should follow him, “Do you have something better to do?”
“Why would you show me around?” I asked warily.
“Well, maybe underneath this terrifying exterior I’m a lovely chap with a heart of gold. Or maybe I just want you to be burned up for the rest of your life carrying secrets around that you’ll never be able to tell anyone. Nice chap or sadist. Your pick.”
“Sadist.”
“Good choice,” Major Wilson replied. His moustache twitched.
For a second I felt relieved despite the nutter I was dealing with. The Major seemed to have forgotten all about the health check that would be my undoing. Whatever stupid games he wanted to play were fine by me, as long as the doctor didn’t see me again.
My sense of relief was short lived.
“We’ll get you back to the doctor after the tour,” Major Wilson continued, “In all likelihood you’ll be dead soon from some infection that thing gave you anyway.”
Great, I thought miserably.
Chapter Ten: The Silent War
Major Wilson walked me down a corridor to a set of elevator doors.
“I want you to understand a few things, Jonathan...”
“Jason.”
“...don’t interrupt me again. Section 19, or as the lads sometimes refer to it, the Counter Monster Unit, is an essential part of national security. We are the first, last and only line of defence against all the things that go bump in the night. We hunt them, we find them and we kill them.”
“But the thing you need to understand is this,” Major Wilson’s voice softened as he spoke with a near fanatical conviction, “We are not the bad guys here.”
The elevator arrived, and we stepped inside. Wilson had instructed the two soldiers to leave us alone. Now I’d eaten something, I could feel my strength returning. For a second I wondered if I could take the Major in a fight but dismissed the thought. Wilson was a military-trained man in his early fifties. I was just a sixteen-year-old kid who had variable super strength at the best of times.
Another part of me wondered why he was suddenly so concerned with showing me around and explaining things. Something wasn’t right.
What was he really up to?
The elevator stopped on the second floor and Major Wilson ushered me into a large, open plan office that covered the whole level. Computer desks operated by around fifty staff filled the space. In the centre of the room was a large operations table with a digital map of Great Britain displayed on it. Above the table several large screens were fixed to a rig that hung from the ceiling. Facts and figures ran across the screens, with areas of the maps pinging alerts on an orange to red gradient. Social media feeds with highlighted flag words appeared – ‘monster’ ‘strange’ ‘wolf’ ‘wild animal’ and more. Grainy camera footage of things that didn’t look human flashed by.
The room hummed with the murmurs of concentrated activity.
“Central command,” Wilson said, “This is where we monitor everything. Phone calls, emails, text messages,” he gritted his teeth at the next one, “snapchats. We intercept anything suspicious and move on it as swiftly as possible. Then we delete the lot. We have algorithms running full-time to detect any unusual activity. Ninety-nine percent of what shows up is nonsense. The one percent that isn’t, that’s when we step in. That’s when we do our job.”
His voice dropped slightly once more, “Which – and again, I need you to be clear on this – is saving people’s lives.”
Now I was seriously confused. Why was he telling me all this? This was clearly highly classified stuff. What was Wilson playing at?
“The things we’re up against, the monsters we fight, they kill, they maim, they murder, they infect and worse. They’re vermin that we put down so the public can sleep at night and no-one is any the wiser. There’s a silent war being fought that has lasted for hundreds of years. The good news is that we’re winning. Ten years ago, this base had three times the staff we have now. That building over there used to house a science wing, but not anymore. Perils of being too good at our job, I suppose. Budgets get cut as we become obsolete. One day, probably in my lifetime, Section 19 won’t be necessary at all. We’ll have won. The monsters will all be dead, every last one.”
My legs were like lead and I was having a hard time listening to anything Major Wilson was saying. Every step I took was another one towards the examination and untimely end. I kept my face impassive and tried not to think about the fact that I might never see my mum again, or Kate, or Dee.
I’ll be honest: I felt like I was about to burst into tears at any second. Ok, yeah, look I know that’s not a very macho thing to admit, but there it is. You try being given a guided tour of a top-secret military compound by a professional psychopath who’s about to find out you’re one of the enemy and put you down like a rabid dog. See how well you do in that situation.
Come on, think, I told myself, there has to be a way out of this.
I would have to make a run for it. There was no other choice. None of the soldiers on the base were carrying weapons, so if I got into the open I could move - and fast. I doubted I could outrun a van, but I’d easily be able to outpace anyone chasing me on foot. There weren’t any helicopters on the base which meant the only real obstacle was the three-metre high fence.
Would I be able to jump that high and clear the fence in a single bound?
Assuming yes, my only option after that would be to go on the run and try to get in contact with Victoria Pryce somehow. She at least had seemed to be less about the kill shots and more about the capture and study than Section 19.
Plus, there was nowhere else to turn.
“Am I boring you?” Major Wilson asked, snapping me out of my frantic planning.
“No, it’s just a lot to take in.”
The best thing to do for now was play along with the Major’s warped little game.
“The social media, snapchat, all that stuff. It must make things a lot harder to cover up?”
“Much easier, surprisingly. A full eighty percent of our budget goes into this side of things. Our surveillance powers mean we can keep our eye on everything that’s happening and shut it down fast.”
Not that fast if Victoria can get there before you.
Major Wilson indicated that I should follow him out of the command centre and we walked down another corridor and up two flights of stairs. We bypassed the third floor and exited onto the flat roof of the building.
It was cold outside, the night sky free of clouds. In the distance were the twinkling lights of a town.
“Where is that?”
“Somewhere in England,” Major Wilson replied.
I guessed that was the standard answer for any civilians brought here.
Wilson walked across the roof to the edge, curtly beckoning me to follow. I did so reluctantly, my fear of heights flaring up. The closer I got to the edge of the roof, the worse it got. The worse my fear got, the more I could feel the fire building up in me. Nowhere close to full strength, but once again I considered my chances in a one-to-one fight with Major Wilson. I’d at least have the element of surprise on my side.
Yeah, not much else though, I thought.
Major Wilson saw my hesitation as I approached the thirty-centimetre high wall that lined the edge of the asphalt topped roof. He had one foot confidently placed on the wall, almost as if he was daring me to push him off.
<
br /> Or perhaps he was planning to push me off.
“Come on, lad,” he said, “You’re not scared of a little height, are you?”
Chapter Eleven: The Spy
I shook my head, gritted my teeth and walked over to where Major Wilson stood. The grey floor span beneath my feet as dizziness and fear gripped me. I tried to ignore it, tried to focus on what the Major was saying. For an insane second I considered jumping from the roof and seeing if I could make it. There was no chance. I found out that my bones broke the same as anyone else’s after a cycling accident when I was fourteen. It had only taken two days for my arm to heal under the cast that the hospital put on, but it had still hurt like hell.
You can’t run on broken legs, I thought.
The base was quiet. Below us another black van rolled through the gates and offloaded a squad. Two sentries manned the gate which was lower than the rest of the fences. I could make out the shape of assault rifles being carried by the sentries. So far they were the only soldiers I’d seen carrying weapons inside the base.
Better to try for the fence.
“What are those buildings over there?” I asked, pointing at three large warehouses. Playing along with whatever Wilson’s game was.
“Records. Most of it is worthless now. The things recorded there are dead.”
“And that?” indicating the cage next to the drill yard.
“The cage,” Major Wilson replied in a satisfied tone, “What do you notice about it?”
“It’s empty.”
“Precisely. Kill, not capture. No prisoners, no mercy. That cage is a reminder of what we do and how we do it. The cage stays empty. No matter what.”
He turned to face me, his grey eyes boring deep into mine again.
He knows, I thought in a panic, he knows there’s something wrong with me. He’s just toying with me.
I couldn’t think of any reason for giving me this tour and telling me all these things. I stepped back from the wall, partly because the dizziness was threatening to overwhelm me, but mostly because of the fear that Major Wilson was about to toss me off the roof.
“Victoria Pryce,” Major Wilson began, ignoring the few steps back I’d taken. He turned round to face me, “You’ve heard of Pryce Industries?”
“I think so. Aren’t they the pharmaceuticals company? Cures for cancer and all that?”
Pryce Industries. Of course. I knew Victoria’s second name had sounded familiar. Everything from vitamin supplements to the latest medical breakthroughs.
“Amongst other things, yes. Victoria and her brother own it jointly. We suspect they’re capturing and harbouring vermin like the monster you saw tonight. From what you’ve told me, my suspicions are correct.”
“Why would they do that?”
“One theory is that they’re using resulting discoveries in chemistry and biology to make the breakthroughs that Pryce Industries is renowned for.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It depends on whether that’s all they are doing. I believe there’s a lot more to it.”
“So why don’t you arrest them or, you know, whatever?”
“We can’t. They’re protected higher up the chain. The Pryce family comes from old money, they go way back. Every time I put a request in to capture and seize it gets refused by my superiors. I’ve had several warnings to leave them alone, and with no direct evidence I can’t take it any further.”
I finally understood what this was all about. I realised why Major Wilson was taking such pains to show me around and explain what Section 19 did.
This was a recruitment speech.
“You want me to spy on Victoria Pryce.”
“I want you to report whatever encounter you have with her next – and her brother Vincent. Every word, every detail. She’s taken an interest in you, for what reason is irrelevant at the moment. The fact is that she seems willing to explain things to you further. In doing so she might let slip something I can use against her.”
Relief that the Major wasn’t planning on throwing me off the roof hit me. He didn’t know there was something weird about me. He just wanted to use me.
“You need to understand this, Jonathan: Victoria Pryce is not to be trusted, under any circumstances. She’s devious, manipulative and will do and say anything to get what she wants. If it was up to me I’d have made her disappear years ago, but it isn’t. Not without some solid evidence of wrongdoing. We’ve had no success getting any moles inside her organisation, though we suspect she has one in Section 19 - which would explain why she’s always one step ahead of us. So as of this point you are working as an informant for us. You’ll report directly to me and no-one else. You will do your best to win her trust and confidence and find out what she’s really up to.”
“What if I say no?”
Major Wilson shrugged, “Then you’ll never see your mother and father again.”
Now I knew he wanted something from me, I was feeling angry again. Since Section 19 had shown up I’d had guns pointed at me, been locked up, threatened, spent most of the night in fear for my life and now here I was being intimidated again.
I’d had enough.
“Well I haven’t seen my father since I was two, so no big change there then,” I snapped back.
Major Wilson’s moustache twitched again. I swear the lunatic was starting to like me.
“Does that bother you?”
I shrugged, not wanting to give him any more ammunition.
“Do you even know who your father is?” Major Wilson asked. He wasn’t mocking me, nor was he concerned. He was just gathering information.
Reluctantly I shook my head, but still said nothing more. Mum never talked about my father, and I’d been so young when he left I couldn’t even remember his face. It was something that had eaten away at me for as long as I could remember. Whenever I’d tried to talk to Mum about it, she avoided the topic.
“Interesting. I wonder...”
An odd look crossed Wilson’s face. An idea had formed in his head. He studied me again.
“It couldn’t be,” he muttered.
He shook his head as if to dismiss whatever far-fetched speculation he’d come up with.
“Come on,” he said.
We left the roof and took the stairs back down to the command centre. In a single deft movement, Major Wilson pinched my unruly mop of brown hair and pulled a few strands out.
“Ow, hey!” I said, startled. Wilson ignored me and studied the few bits of hair he’d pulled.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Can’t do a DNA test without a follicle,” Major Wilson replied. He grunted, satisfied with the strands he’d grabbed. He snapped his fingers at a man sitting at a computer and carefully handed him the strands of hair.
“I want a paternity test run on these. Take them to the Brockhurst lab and tell them its top priority. Full sweep, every database. Nothing is classified as far as this goes. Do it now.”
“Now?” the tech guy said, “It’s two in the morning, sir!”
Major Wilson didn’t say a word or move a muscle. The techie got moving.
“A paternity test? Are you serious? What the hell are you doing?”
“Finding out something you want to know. You’ve heard of the term ‘leverage’ haven’t you?” Major Wilson replied.
“Sure,” I shot back, “Right next to blackmail, threats and bullying in the dictionary, isn’t it? This is a total invasion of privacy! What right do you have to do this?”
Wilson glanced at me as if I was stupid. I fumed. Then another thought occurred to me.
“Hang on, how can you even do that? It isn’t as if the government has everyone’s DNA on file. They only have criminals’, right?”
Wilson snorted a quick laugh that told me I was being exceptionally naïve, and then we were off again, out of the office building and into the drill yard.
Wilson entered one of the low Nissen huts and I followed him, still fuming. Being angry
was better than being scared, I supposed. In my angry haze I’d thought Wilson was about to show off more of Section 19. Maybe take me to sign some documents and continue on his recruitment/blackmail roll.
Instead, he’d casually walked me straight into the base’s medical centre.
Doctor Pierce was there, ready to uncover my secret. So were two soldiers. I’d been so busy being angry that for a few seconds I’d forgotten all about my escape plan.
And now it was too late.
Chapter Twelve: Boom
“Give him another check. If there’s no infection, we’ll send him on his way,” Major Wilson said. With that he left me in the middle of the Nissen hut.
Me, two soldiers and the doctor. There was a strained expression on her face. She indicated I should sit. The two soldiers positioned by the exit weren’t carrying any weapons, but they were watching my every move.
Perhaps I could have busted my way out of there, using the element of surprise. I like to think I could have if I’d timed it right. Instead, I decided instead to play for time and try to bluff my way through this. I didn’t want to become a fugitive unless there was no other choice.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about escaping from Section 19.
Things were about to blow up in Major Wilson’s face.
Quite literally.
Pierce instructed me to take off the black turtleneck sweater, then she unwrapped the bandages around my chest. The only sign that remained of the scratches I’d taken were three faint white scars.
She looked startled.
“What the hell?”
“Yeah, I tried to tell you, that wasn’t my blood. The thing was bleeding itself. Or, um, something.”
It wasn’t the most convincing lie, but it was the best I could come up with.
Pierce looked at me sceptically through her glasses.
“Alright, kid, cut the crap. Why are you here?”
I didn’t understand. The doctor waved the two soldiers over to show my healed chest.
“What is this?” one of the soldiers asked.
Personal Demons Page 5
